


I'll be the ghost inside your head when we are through

by makesometime



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (but less of that than I wanted), (had to use that tag), Canon-Typical Gore, Elias Bouchard Being a Bastard, M/M, Nostalgia at the end of the world, Old Married Couple, Post-Apocalypse, Season/Series 04 Spoilers, Season/Series 05 Spoilers, The Eye says Elias can reminisce, as a treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24625777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makesometime/pseuds/makesometime
Summary: The man most recently known as Elias Bouchard stands in the lobby of his empire and smiles.(or: The Heart of the Institute surveys his dominion in the days after The Watcher's Crown, and encounters some old friends along the way.)
Relationships: Barnabas Bennett/Jonah Magnus, Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas, Jonah Magnus/Albrecht von Closen, Jonah Magnus/Robert Smirke, Jonathan Fanshawe/Jonah Magnus, Mordechai Lukas/Jonah Magnus
Comments: 10
Kudos: 68





	I'll be the ghost inside your head when we are through

**Author's Note:**

> What started out as me pondering over whether Peter will be able to talk with Elias, like Evan did with Naomi, has essentially devolved into the Eye 'To All the Boys I've Loved Before'-ing Elias, as a treat.
> 
> Because he is a terrible man, and does not deserve nice things even in victory.
> 
> (I hope you enjoy, I'm a wee smidge nervous about posting this alongside so many talented authors, especially cos it is not half as Lonely Eyes as I wanted it to be.)
> 
> (Title from Baby You're A Haunted House - Gerard Way)

The man most recently known as Elias Bouchard stands in the lobby of his empire and smiles. 

The Panopticon spreads out before him as he wishes to See it, replete with an extended lifetime of memories. Every hotel foyer, each grand receiving room he has ever entered is reflected here in some way or another. The chequered floor of the Savoy, the wallpaper of the St Pancras Hotel, the grand and sweeping staircase from Moorland Park.

It should look garish - by rights it  _ does _ \- but there is a satisfaction that comes from Knowing these details into existence, reflecting a life that all lead to a singular,  _ successful _ purpose.

He closes his eyes, dials into the fear and pain that resides just beyond the doors behind him and breathes it all in.

\--

The staircase leads upward to the all-seeing Eye, standing proud above the new world. Perhaps it is beneath him to make the ascent but there is a voice in his head that sounds oddly like Peter insisting that humbling himself now is the least he can do.

He sets one foot inside the other and begins to climb, footsteps muffled by thick carpet and the screams of terror that filter through the tower like gusts of wind through a partially opened window. 

If he were to Look, he might have a comprehension of what awaits him on his path, but the undeniable sense of satisfaction that comes from  _ winning _ makes it unnecessary. The warm opulence of the foyer leads to cosy, familiar halls, offshooting from the main staircase and aligned in physical impossibility. 

He passes a few nebulous corridors on his ascent, frowning at the way they feel wrong, somehow, drawn from unimportant memories and forgotten thoughts, glitching and twisting…

His mind opens, accepts and allows, and it becomes  _ right _ .

The first stop he makes is predicated by a slow curl of mist around the base of his right leg. He glances down, his heart leaping in a way that is easy to ignore in favour of a cold quirk of his lips at its presence.

“You dare? Here?”

The mist retracts, parting for him like the Red Sea for Moses. With a few more steps the scent of pipe smoke reaches his nose and with that comes the realisation that it is a mere imitation of the Lonely fog. He follows the swirling grey until he finds himself in front of a door, large, darkly stained and ornately carved, unpleasantly cold as he runs his fingers over a brass name plate.

_ Mordechai Lukas. _

He smiles. His hand strays down the wood, aching with the chill that creeps up his fingers, over his palm, caressing his wrist. The handle turns easily because this door was never closed to him, never once.

He pushes, and it opens barely an inch before he is flooded with a remembered scent profile so visceral that it causes a mimicry of butterflies in his stomach. So much of his success ties back to conversations that took place in this room, to deals struck and  _ favours  _ shared—.

“Not today, Jonah.”

The rejection stings, poised as he was to gaze upon whatever spectre of Mordechai the Eye has seen fit to provide him.

Instead, he swallows around a smirk. “Very well. But do not think you’ll escape me forever.”

A snort. He can imagine the twisting of the man’s lips behind a heavy moustache. “Chance would be a fine thing.”

\--

It is only fitting that the next stop is  _ encouraged _ by a crunching underfoot that sounds like gravel, until he looks down to find himself standing on bones, laid out in an vulgar imitation of his Institute office’s parquet flooring.

He strays from the stairs, down a dark and cold hallway to a bone-white door that is as cold as, if not colder than the previous.

He stops, eyes fixed on the chicken-scratch announcement of  _ Barnabas Bennett,  _ stained and marked by time.

It is not regret that fills him upon reading the name, for there is nothing left to regret here in the scene of his greatest triumph. No, it could be more suitably described as a wistful remembrance, for it was not all that long ago that he recounted the man’s last letter for his Archivist’s benefit.

“Jonah?”

The voice comes from behind the door, but even if he wanted to access the room beyond there is no handle, no keyhole, no hinges.

“Jonah, is that you?”

He bites his tongue, blinking and quiet in the face of the sudden hammering of fists on the barrier that stands before him. 

He takes a step back, feels the grind of old bones under his heel. Pauses.

“Jonah, please get me out of here, please!” 

He doesn’t speak. Can’t speak. The distinction is impossible to make.

“Jonah, my dear man, I know it’s you. You’ve come for me at last!”

He steps back again, ignores the discomfort that settles in his stomach. He cannot help. This is surely some lesson which he will come to understand, in time.

He turns, ignores the increasingly desperate cries of his name and wanders back to the staircase.

\--

The next unwitting point of call isn’t a hallway at all. Stretching out, as far as the eye can see, beech trees and pine trees stand proud and tall in a still and airless night. In the darkness the trees appear as elongated figures, branches like limbs, a faceless crowd of onlookers.

Further down the path, in a perfect beam of moonlight, sits a stone mausoleum. Surrounding it, little piles of books.

He does not need to get closer to be aware of the name carved in the lintel, nor does it overly surprise him when the eye-covered door blinks back at him.

_ Albrecht von Closen  _ he mouths to himself, and the eyes narrow, judgement in their gaze when he decides not to inspect further.

The dead deserve peace, after all.

As he turns away, he pretends not to hear the terrified scream from inside the tomb.

\--

He is uncertain what he expects to come face to face with next but it is certainly not a poor imitation of the British Museum, rendered in imperfect detail, all at once too big and too small for the space that it inhabits. A balmy summer night finds the facade illuminated but deserted, one of the front doors open, an inviting taunt.

The Reform Club, perhaps, would have suited more. The house in Charlotte Street, where they had shared more than one evening of heated debate. Or nothing at all, perhaps, as they are already in a place built on the ruins of Robert’s endeavours.

“I see that I was right.”

There is a figure silhouetted in the doorway of the museum, standing taller and prouder than Robert Smirke did in his final days. He cannot see the man’s face but he can  _ feel _ his disappointment.

“About what?”

A short huffed breathe precedes a faint chuckle. “So many things, Jonah. Where would you prefer I start?”

“I received your letter, the one you wrote when you--.”

“Died?” Robert interjects, tilting his head this way and that. “Were you already lost to the Eye as I feared?”

Something flares in his chest, indignant and heated. “To call it lost is demonstrably false, I feel.”

The night around them turns chill, summer heat faded with the haste of snapped fingers. “Do you? Terribly sorry to point this out, but it does appear to have somewhat ended the world.”

“You believed that there could not be true balance.” He shrugs, refusing to look away, for he feels no shame. “I simply ensured that the correct Entity would reign supreme.”

Robert lifts his chin, looking to a sky that is non-existent here, a black void so unlike the pleasant  _ rightness _ of the Watcher’s gaze. “The sky blinks.”

“And I awake.”

Robert appears to luxuriate for a moment in the oddity of having his words repeated back to him. When the man speaks again, there is a smile in the words. “Go well, Jonah. I hope this is everything you wanted it to be. Perhaps you might visit, if the time can be spared.”

The door closes, and the facade lights dim. He stands with uncomfortably many thoughts on his mind, far longer than he means to.

\--

He climbs for some time after that, feeling the welcoming tug of the Eye and no further distractions that are worthy of his attention… until he takes a step onto another landing and it  _ squelches _ . He looks down to find the carpet thick with congealed blood, whites and yellows turned pink and brown with decay.

Glancing further, he finds carpet leading up to a metal door with a solid pull-bar handle, a plate on the front inscribed with  _ Lecture in session: Dr Jonathan Fanshawe. _

Above the name sits a tiny hatch, at perfect height for his eyeline. He opens it to see the back of Jonathan’s head as the man stands in front of an autopsy table. The floor surrounding it is marred by streaks and floods of dark red, but when the man takes a step there are no footsteps left in the visceral muck.

His hand stretches automatically to the handle, though he is unsurprised to be unable to open it. He stays still, watching as Jonathan lectures to an empty observation room about the correct ways to perform a clinical autopsy.

“And you will see here, Jonah, the fruits of your labour.” 

Jonathan steps aside, without even a glance to the door. The movement reveals a faceless body on the table, cut open from throat to groin but clearly still barely alive. With the ribcage removed, the lungs flicker in desperate attempts at breath, the heart beating slow and lazy.

Covering the organs, the bones and the skin are dozens of tiny eyes. It is as he imagined upon reading Jonathan’s letter, a curious fascination piqued by the way his old friend described the sight of Albrecht’s corpse - though this body is not his, the face unrecognisable in its unimportance.

“Any disappointment you might have felt at learning I disposed of the body is now gone, I hope.” Jonathan speaks, still presenting to his empty audience.

“You may go now.”

The hatch slides shut in front of his eyes.

\--

The light from the Eye, green and hazy, filters down from but a few steps above. He lifts his chin, bathing in its presence, feeling its satisfaction at everything it Sees and everything it Knows.

It sits over what he Knows to be his new domain. Might it be styled after his Institute office? His room at Moorland Park, or perhaps the space gifted to him by Smirke, all those years ago? Anticipation swoops its way through his gut at not instinctively  _ Knowing _ this, but wondering over it.

Yet first. There is something he cannot avoid.

The carpet that leads to his old apartment door is as welcoming and familiar as it always was. This door, unlike all the others, is slightly ajar, with warm light spilling out. 

Inviting.

He doesn’t want to go (doesn’t want this to be a trick) but he moves closer regardless. As he approaches he hears the faint hum of the gramophone, one of Peter’s favourite records playing. While he moves, a shadow falls across the light stream and then continues onward.

His heart, again, does an annoying sort of stutter in his chest.  _ Really _ . He almost rolls his eyes.

He pushes the door open, glancing around for anything untoward, but finds nothing. His eyes light upon the soles of Peter’s heavy seafaring boots through the kitchen door, one tapping away at the beat of the music.

“Congratulations Elias.”

It’s more than easy to wear a pleased smirk as he comes face to face with his husband. Peter’s words are everything he’s wanted to hear for the years of their acquaintance, has chased through wagers and fought for through divorce after divorce. 

“I know how much it must hurt you to say that.”

Peter shrugs, performatively unconcerned. “It seems rather pointless to fight it now, dear.”

His fingers itch with the desire to touch his husband, entirely against reason. To run his fingers through Peter’s beard, press lips to his throat. Settle across his lap and inhale the pervasive scent of salt and sea air that always follows him around.

Instead, he moves closer, reaching out to curve his hand possessively over Peter’s shoulder.

When it phases right through, he is almost not even surprised.

“Oh!” Peter says, somehow injecting utter joy into a single word. 

_“Peter._ ”

“You are stuck here with all of us. But you cannot See us.” He weighs his palm over Elias’ outstretched hand, wedding band gold and gleaming. “Or, evidently, cannot  _ touch. _ ”

“That’s not—.” He starts, but the denial is impossible. 

For as easy as it has been to lie to this man in the past - to all of them - Peter Knows with more confidence than any of them that his assessment of the situation is correct.

“Oh, Elias.” Peter smiles, warm and cold and triumphant, all at once. “How _Lonely._ ”


End file.
